Braindrain changes direction eastwards

Many of India's best and brightest used to immigrate to countries like the United Kingdom or the United States, looking for better jobs or education. But times have changed.

Today, led by its IT and high-tech industries, Japan appears to have become one of the most attractive and trendy immigration destinations for the Indians. It's becoming increasingly common in Tokyo streets to see people like Varsha Deshpande clad in traditional Indian garb.

Varsha and her husband Mahesh Deshpande have immigrated from India after taking IT jobs at multinational companies in Tokyo.

They have two children - seven-year-old Rahul and two-year-old Ria - and live in the eastern Tokyo town of Edogawa, an area that some locals call Little India.

"A lot of Indians live in this part of Tokyo because over here we have Indian shops and even an Indian international school," said Varsha.

The number of Indian families living in Japan has doubled over the past few years. Now, about 10,000 Indian people live in the Tokyo metropolitan area alone, and their population is still growing.

That's because more and more skilled Indian workers - mostly engineers in their 20s and 30s - are taking jobs at multi nationals in Japan's information technology and financial sectors.

Rahul goes to a nearby international school, which opened just recently and is designed especially for children of Indian expatriates and immigrants.

Recently, the Indian ambassador to Japan HE Hemant Singh celebrated the opening of the school, which offers a wide variety of cross-cultural subjects from mathematics and Japanese calligraphy to yoga. The classes are given in English.

"There are many subjects - many fun subjects," said Rahul Deshpande, 5.

As much as the Indians here make an effort to learn how to live in the Japanese society, they are also eager to preserve their own culture and tradition. As a result, there's been an increasing number of Indian shops and restaurants in Tokyo recently, and Indian Websites and community newspapers are burgeoning.

The Deshpande family keep in touch with their roots through community events such as this. The family recently went to an Indian festival where they danced India's traditional Dandiya with hundreds of other immigrants who wielded a pair of colourfully decorated sticks and grooved to their traditional tunes.

"Japan, of course, is the second largest economy in the world. It's a big manufacturing hub. You have Sony and Toyota so you have a lot of IT work here. Innovation comes from Japan, so it's a very good place to learn about innovation and it's perfect," said Mahesh Deshpande, 36, Varsha's husband and an engineer.

Bureau Report